Old east german border

On December 22, the X Corps and Third Army ordered Stange, the Special Organization, and the volunteers to converge separately on Ardahan. The Special Organization, now locally commanded by Captain Halit Bey, cooperated and joined the advance. [26] Despite bad winter weather, these forces began to encircle the city on December 29. Because Stange controlled neither the Special Organization nor the volunteers, he sent coordination copies of his own detachment orders to Halit, who passed these on to the adjacent volunteers. [27] This was a clumsy arrangement, and there is no indication that the Special Organization and volunteers reciprocated. The result was an uncoordinated attack on Ardahan. Stange's detachment suffered heavy casualties [28] while Special Organization and volunteer losses were light. [29] The Ottomans failed to hold the city for long. In early January 1915, the Russians retook the city with bayonet assaults. Over the next month, the Ottomans conducted a fighting retreat back toward Artvin.

Gorbachev only accepted German reunification—over which the Soviet Union had a legal right to veto under treaty—because he received assurances that NATO would not expand after he withdrew his forces from Eastern Europe from James Baker, President George . Bush, West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the CIA Director Robert Gates, French President Francois Mitterrand, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, British foreign minister Douglas Hurd, British Prime Minister John Major, and NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner.